Thelma Ritter Movies
At the tender age of eight, Thelma Ritter was regaling the students and faculty of Brooklyn's Public School 77 with her recitals of such monologues as "Mr. Brown Gets His Haircut" and "The Story of Cremona". After appearing in high school plays and stock companies, Ritter was trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Throughout the Depression years, she and her actor husband Joe... (read more) Moran did everything short of robbing banks to support themselves; when vaudeville and stage assignments dried up, they entered slogan and jingle contests. Moran forsook performing to become an actor's agent in the mid-1930s, while Ritter also briefly gave up acting to raise a family. She started working professionally again in 1940 as a radio performer. In 1946, director George Seaton, an old friend of Ritter, offered her a bit role in the upcoming New York-lensed Miracle on 34th Street. Ritter's single scene as a weary Yuletide shopper went over so well that 20th Century-Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck insisted that the actress' role be expanded. After Ritter garnered good notices for her unbilled Miracle role, Joseph L. Mankiewicz wrote a part specifically for her in his 1948 film A Letter to Three Wives (1949). She was afforded screen billing for the first time in 1949's City Across the River. During the first few years of her 20th Century-Fox contract, Ritter was Oscar-nominated for her performance as Bette Davis' acerbic maid in All About Eve, and for her portrayal of upwardly mobile John Lund's just-folks mother in The Mating Season (1951). In all, the actress would receive five nominations -- the other three were for With a Song in My Heart (1952), Pickup on South Street (1953) and Pillow Talk (1959) -- though she never won the gold statuette. Ritter finally received star billing in the comedy/drama The Model and the Marriage Broker (1952), in which she assuages her own loneliness by finding suitable mates for others. After a showcase part as James Stewart's nurse in Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954), Ritter made do with standard film supporting parts and starring roles on TV. In 1957, Ritter appeared as waterfront barfly Marthy in the Broadway musical New Girl in Town, a bowdlerization of Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie. Ritter interrupted her still-thriving screen career in 1965 for another Broadway appearance in James Kirkwood's UTBU. Shortly after a 1968 guest appearance on TV's The Jerry Lewis Show, Ritter suffered a heart attack which would ultimately prove fatal; the actress' last screen appearance, like her first, was a cameo role in a George Seaton-directed comedy, What's So Bad About Feeling Good? (1968). Ritter's daughter, Monica Moran, also pursued an acting career from the 1940s through the 1970s. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
What's So Bad About Feeling Good?
1968
In this comedy, New York City undergoes a dramatic change when a toucan carrying a strange virus is smuggled through customs. In those it infects, the virus causes an intense...
The Incident
1967
Martin Sheen may be the Grey Eminence of movies nowadays, but back in 1967 he often as not played switchblade-wielding punks. This he does, in the company of Tony Musante,...
Boeing Boeing
1965
Marc Camoletti's popular stage farce Boeing Boeing is watered down and realigned into a Tony Curtis/Jerry Lewis vehicle. Curtis plays an American journalist...
For Love or Money
1963
In this romantic comedy, Deke Gentry (Kirk Douglas) is a lawyer who gets an unusual assignment from Chloe Brasher (Thelma Ritter), a wealthy widow, owner of a successful...
Move Over, Darling
1963
A man makes the highly unexpected discovery that he has two wives in this romantic comedy. Widower Nick Arden (James Garner) has just set off on his honeymoon with his new wife...
A New Kind of Love
1963
A man falls for an exotic "bad girl," unaware he's already met the nice girl lurking beneath the surface, in this romantic comedy. Samantha Blake (Joanne Woodward) works...
How the West Was Won
G 1962
Filmed in panoramic Cinerama, this star-studded, epic Western adventure is a true cinematic classic. Three legendary directors (Henry Hathaway, John Ford, and...
Birdman of Alcatraz
1962
In this film based on a true story, Burt Lancaster plays Robert Stroud, a withdrawn prison inmate who cures a sick bird that flies into his cell and eventually becomes a...
The Second Time Around
1961
Though the title suggests that this film is a musical romance built around the song hit of the same name, Second Time Around is actually a comedy western. Debbie Reynolds...
The Misfits
NR 1961
The final film of stars Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe is an elegy for the death of the Old West from writer Arthur Miller and director John Huston. Gable stars as...
Ford Startime: The Man
1960
"The Man" is the title of this television drama that tells the story of a disturbed veteran visiting an army buddy's mother. ~ Rovi...
A Hole in the Head
1959
Although the main character, Tony Manetta (Frank Sinatra), in this light comedy tends to tip the scales towards being unbelievably unrealistic, the story is pulled off because...
Pillow Talk
1959
The fabulously successful Pillow Talk was essentially Shop Around the Corner for the 1950s. Playboy composer Rock Hudson and interior-decorator Doris Day are obliged...
Alfred Hitchcock Presents: The Baby Sitter
1956
Thelma Ritter, previously seen as the delightfully ghoulish nurse in Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 theatrical feature Rear Window, is here cast as babysitter Lottie Slocum....
The Proud and Profane
1956
In this war romance, set during WW II, a widow falls for a Marine colonel. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi...
Lucy Gallant
1955
An unusually matronly Jane Wyman plays the title character in Lucy Gallant. Adapted from a novel by Margaret Cousins, the story concerns the efforts by Lucy Gallant to make the...
27th Annual Academy Awards Presentations
1955
This video presents archival footage of the Academy Awards ceremony held in 1955 for movies released in 1954. The program shows an evening hosted by Bob Hope, during which the...
Death Paints a Legacy
1955
Valuable paintings owned by a New England woman are discovered forcing her to the center of attention. ~ Rovi...
Daddy Long Legs
1955
This last remake (thus far) of the Jean Webster novel Daddy Long Legs was extensively revised to accommodate the talents of Fred Astaire and Leslie Caron. Fragments of...
Rear Window
PG 1954
Laid up with a broken leg, photojournalist L.B. Jeffries (James Stewart) is confined to his tiny, sweltering courtyard apartment. To pass the time between visits from his nurse...